Chapter 9
Iave
I heard Kalani’s scream right as the second door swung shut behind me with a groaning noise.
Rusty, grinding noises emitted from inside the thick panel and the wall next to it.
I responded in reflex, leaping for the door and curling my fingers around it, coiling my tail around a nearby protrusion; some kind of strange table, for purchase.
“Kalani, hurry up!” I urged but it was too late, the panel had already closed so far that she could never slip through. I had to let go of it if I didn’t want to lose all ten of my fingers. Growling in anger, I watched the door slam shut on my mate’s anxious face.
Slamming my fist against the thick slab of ancient metal, I growled with anger. This layer separating me from my mate was wrong; I’d never felt so trapped. A deep sense of dread filled me and I wanted to toss back my head and scream.
I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t sit on my tail and wallow in this miserable feeling.
I had to act quickly to get her out. She was trapped in the dark right now, in a tunnel that Bitter Storm sentinels could access if they had tried to follow us.
She was in danger and scared, and that knowledge tore at my heart.
Spinning around, ax already in hand, I searched for another of those panels to destroy like the one that had opened the first door.
It had worked before, it had to work for this one too.
My eyes trailed over the strange metal table to one side of this slightly wider hallway, then traced the wall filled with odd, flat gray mirrors.
Which one was it? This looked completely different from what was on the other side.
Give me an enemy I could see and fight any time, not this.
This was Corin’s strength, not mine. The ancient technology that we scavenged from our ancestors, or the technology we took from the falling sky-ships was beyond me.
Often it was too small and fragile for my big fingers and things would break, or worse, shock me.
Good thing that wreaking havoc was the plan in this case.
Without knowing the exact target I needed, I was going to smash them all.
But first I needed to see if I could communicate with Kalani in some way.
Tapping my fist against the door I said, “Hang on, Kalani. I will get you out!” And then I raised my favorite weapon and started smashing things.
Bash and the first strange mirror shattered.
Clang and a whole row of buttons on the strange table scattered and broke.
Another good heave and the bank of mirrors in the wall was no more.
With a strange beeping, lights suddenly flared to life from the dozens of crystals embedded above me in the ceiling.
Welcome but not at all the result I was going for.
I swung my head to check if the door had moved and saw nothing had changed at all.
With a furious, desperate yell I landed another blow to the strange table with the many buttons.
The lights flickered and hummed, and more strident, alarmed beeping issued from some hidden corner; then I heard a click.
Dropping my ax, I raced for the thick door panel and dug my claws into the narrow crevice. Come on! Move, damn it! I groaned as I pulled, my worry fueled even more when my eyes skated over the dozens of deep claw marks scattered over the panel’s surface.
I was not the first desperate to open this door and I was certain that was not a good sign even if these claw marks were old.
They had failed by the looks of it, what if I failed too?
“Kalani!” I yelled; the only thing I knew she’d understand without my touch.
My muscles ached and burned as I pulled and then, finally, I felt it move.
As the panel started to yield to my strength it hit me hard how close I’d just been to losing her.
The door started to swing open and from the other side, Kalani didn’t wait. My brave Goddess wormed her way through the gap I’d created as soon as it was possible. The space was so small I worried she’d taken some precious, beautiful skin off in the process.
Letting go of the door, I yanked her into my arms. The panel slammed shut with a loud, ominous crack and something whirred and clicked inside of it.
“My mate! Thank the stars. I thought I’d lost you…
” I groaned against her crown of soft, springy hair.
Running my hands along her back, her arms, and then my tail over her legs; I was frantic to assure myself that she was in one piece.
My heart was pounding in my chest, memories of losing my family as a youngling crashing into me and blending with the here and now. I wanted to drag her close, hold her tight, and never let her go. I wanted to mate her right now, so that she was tied to me, unable to ever escape my coils.
I could not lose her and fear that she might leave me or get killed was almost paralyzingly powerful. Then she suddenly stiffened in my arms, her face tilting up so her eyes met mine. “Did you just call me your mate?” she asked.
In my veins, my blood turned to ice.
***
Kalani
When the thick airlock door shut behind Iave’s back, darkness was instant and all-consuming. I froze in place and closed my eyes so that I could hone in on my other senses. What could I hear? What was there to smell? And what could I remember of this place?
A small space, ten by ten feet at the most, with slick black walls on either side and a single crystal embedded in the ceiling. I had a faint recollection of some kind of metal door handle in the door in front of me, a horizontal bar as thick as my wrist, but that was it.
My ears wanted to fill the silence with all kinds of sounds like the slithering of a Naga tail on stone; the skitter of a crocodillian creature in the dark.
I thought that maybe I could hear Iave slam against the closed portal but those thuds could just as easily be wishful thinking.
I wanted Iave to fight to get me out from the other side, and I liked to think that he would.
With how thick the doors were, I was almost certain that it would be impossible to hear anything.
I also knew that the airlock’s second door wouldn’t want to open for me unless the door behind me was fully shut.
That’s how airlocks usually operated on any of the spaceships I’d served on and I had no reason to expect differently here, even if the purpose of this one was different.
I didn’t want to panic at that thought. Iave had made moving the door seem easy but I knew it wasn’t, especially not in the dark.
On top of that, it wasn’t even guaranteed to work.
I could just as easily end up locking myself into a ten-foot square prison, and that was a horrifying future to contemplate.
I was much more comfortable facing an opponent in combat than this.
Give me a rifle any time over something as maddening as this dead man’s trap.
A nameless, faceless danger I couldn’t fight and overpower, I had to think smart and figure out how this airlock worked to make it do what I needed; open the right door.
A wave of homesickness and loss crashed over me.
As an orphan, I’d grown up without a family except for the kids I shared the group home with.
I’d picked and joined many different chosen families during my life so far.
Each of them had a special place in my heart even if I’d lost touch with some of them over time.
There’d been the girls I took under my wing in my teenage years, mentoring and comforting them, as they navigated life without any parents in the group home we lived in.
Then there were the cadets I’d gone through basic training with, and that was followed by each of the marines that I’d ended up stationed with at all my various postings during my career in space.
The laughing, tan face of my friend Camilla came to mind especially.
A petite Latina who had welcomed me home to her giant family during bouts of leave.
Always with a perpetual long braid that she refused to cut, no matter how impractical.
I’d gotten to know her when I served alongside her on the Praetor, and I knew one of the Praetor’s short-range shuttles had brought us here.
Did she know about this? I couldn’t believe that she would have willingly played any part in selling me into slavery, or anyone else for that matter.
There was no use speculating, it would get me nowhere and absolutely zero answers.
I shouldn’t be standing here like a statue when I was separated from my only ally down on this strange planet.
I shivered when I realized there was another risk I took just by standing here.
If the Naga we’d heard had tried to follow us, they could reach me at any time and I’d be a sitting duck.
I didn’t kid myself, I knew that I was no match for two of them with just a bow; especially not in total darkness.
Making a decision, I started moving forward with small shuffling steps while I held my hands out in front of my face.
Locating the closed door I thought I heard Iave’s muffled voice on the other side as he shouted my name.
My heart clenched in my chest as I heard that, if I wasn’t imagining it, he sounded utterly heartbroken.
I patted the door, “Don’t worry, Iave. We’ll figure this out.
” Once we were reunited I should probably apologize for making us go this way.
Clearly, a tunnel collapse wasn’t the only danger to reckon with down here.
I was still convinced that Iave had just picked the other direction at random and that could have been just as bad or worse.